SCARRED BY STRUGGLE, TRANSFORMED BY HOPE

A Benedictine nun reveals the great personal cost of learning humility when her order instructed her to withdraw her application to a prestigious creative writing program: She lost her dream of writing fiction. Narrating with crisp, precise diction, Chittister matches voice to mood as she talks about life being a series of lessons, a balancing act between hope and despair as life, from infancy, forges us in struggle. She animates the reading and uses the biblical story of Jacob to show how such struggles can lead to personal growth and new directions, even though they carry a cost. The cost to Jacob after wrestling with God was to limp. The cost to Chittister in learning humility was to give up her dream. This is an insightful book to savor. G.D.W. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine [Published: JULY 2008]